


You're Welcome, a Dogma epilog by Sue Castle.

by glacis



Category: Dogma (1999)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-16
Updated: 2010-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:40:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An epilog for the movie, wherein Bartleby and Loki give thanks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Welcome, a Dogma epilog by Sue Castle.

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Пожалуйста](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370836) by [Olga_F](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olga_F/pseuds/Olga_F)



You're Welcome, a Dogma epilog by Sue Castle. Rated NC17 for sex between mortals of the male persuasion. No copyright infringement intended to Kevin Smith or anyone else (with thanks to the boys for being so damned sweet together).

 

"I'm sorry." His breath was hot and sweet on Loki's neck, his arm strong around him, and Loki felt safe for the first time since all the madness started. That stupid envelope. That stupid fucking newspaper clipping. He leaned against Bartleby and closed his eyes, dizzy for the first time in millennia with the beer, hanging on for dear life to his very best friend.

The knife didn't start hurting until it burst his heart. It happened so fast he didn't even feel it slide under his ribs. That he, who'd dealt death to so many damned, should miss its approach himself, would have made him laugh if he'd had any breath left. Instead, he just clutched back, until his hands wouldn't clutch anymore. All he felt was the burn in his chest, and the dampness of Bartleby's tears on his neck.

Then ... nothing.

 

He'd wanted to get home so badly. Convinced himself that while there was good on the Earth, after so long from home, it was worth any risk to end this exile. His desperation was enough to justify anything and everything he had to do to go home. He'd scared Loki, he knew it, remembered the unaccustomed fear in the wide blue eyes, not hidden by the shadows of the parking garage. But as always Loki had followed him, even through his fear.

Until the last moment.

When he'd discovered scruples Bartleby hadn't known Loki'd ever possessed.

After all, theological debate, moral absolutes, and definitions of right and wrong had always been his forte. Loki killed people. Bartleby debated them to death.

He'd done his part. Got them to the church on time, a sick joke Loki'd've laughed at, if Bartleby hadn't made the final, truly unforgivable, absolutely worst betrayal. But Loki had refused to rip Bartleby's wings off. Refused to end the torment and get them back home. Something deep in Bartleby, something that had been worn away by thousands of years stuck in exile as punishment for being a moral being, finally snapped.

Fuck it.

They were all corrupt little pieces of shit anyway. Why shouldn't he kill them? Stupid little minds and stunted little souls filled with greed, contempt, bitterness, violence, black cankers upon the earth. Affronts to Her eyes in ways he never had been, but they could find forgiveness and go home, and he couldn't.

So he'd sent as many of them home as he could find.

Loki had screamed at him. Pleaded with him. Threatened him. Cajoled him. Then threw up his hands and gotten drunk off his ass. Not that he should have expected Loki to cave in and cut off his wings just because Bartleby was raining mortals from the skies. The unnecessary killing of humans had always been anathema to Bartleby, not Loki. Death was no stranger to the Angel of Death.

In the end, he'd had no choice. The torment was never going to end. So he'd ended it. He'd held Loki close to him, gathering and giving as much comfort as he could, making the end as painless as possible. Maybe, just maybe, for once, She'd be merciful to the innocent, and Loki at least could finally go home.

Then he'd seen Her. Metatron was all stern judgement, and yes, smart ass, Wisconsin really was that bad. _He_ should try living for thousands of years in the middle of nowhere, without rest, sex, alcohol, or hope for forgiveness and repatriation. But She'd understood. He'd seen it in Her eyes. Understanding, and sorrow, and decision. Finally, in the silence, he knew She would end it. And She had.

"Thank you." Inadequate, but soul-felt.

He watched Her eyes, not Her mouth, as She sang to him. The pressure built, inside his chest, much as he expected that last moment had felt for Loki. It built in his head, behind his eyes, along his ears, until with a violence as great as the explosion of the sun, as cataclysmic as his fall from grace dragging his soul mate behind him, all the pain ... finally ... stopped.

 

The alarm clock rang beside his head with all the force of a neutron bomb, and he rolled over, one hand holding his head on so it wouldn't fall off and the other beating the bleating clock to death.

There was a construction crew playing jackhammer tunes on the inside of his skull. His tongue tasted like it hadn't been mowed since last spring. His bladder felt like somebody'd shoved an ice pick in it, and if he moved too fast, his head really would roll right off his shoulders and melt into a puddle of radioactive goo in the middle of the living room floor. The couch was at least eight feet off the ground, and he really wasn't up to falling all that way just to find the bathroom. 'Though he had to pee something awful.

He had the mother of all hangovers.

Lying as still as possible so as not to die immediately, 'though he wasn't quite sure why he was prolonging the agony, Luke tried to breathe without moving his ribcage and did his best to think. Something important had happened, or was happening, or was about to happen. And he really had to remember what it was. Soon, or he'd lose it completely. And whatever the hell it was, he really, really didn't want to lose it.

It was his salvation.

Doing his best to ignore the symphony of screams that had taken up residence in his skull, he reviewed the relevant facts. He was a cop. He was good at reviewing evidence. It was easy, really, once you knew what you were doing, and he was a damned good cop, he knew what he was doing. Although he sure as hell hadn't known last night when he crawled into a keg of beer and tried to drown himself.

Okay, facts. Name : Luke Matthew Thanatos. Age : 30, as of last night, hence the beer. Occupation : homicide detective with the Madison PD, Madison, Wisconsin, late of Chicago, Illinois, where he'd served with distinction before getting the hell out of there before the body count scared him into the priesthood. Marital status : single and stalking anything with a pulse.

Behind his squinted-shut eyelids, an image began to form. Porcelain pale skin, big bright eyes, short dark hair, strong chin, delicate mouth. Tall, strong, warm, funny, kind, smart, his, forever, together.

His bladder became much less urgent as he popped a boner that would do a picket fence proud.

His eyes flew open.

A guy?

A gorgeous guy, yeah, sure, but a stranger ...

An ache in his heart joined the ache in his groin.

Not a stranger.

He had to get to the airport. Couldn't have given a reason for God nor money, but knew more surely than anything he'd ever known that he _had_ to get to the airport. He hit the shower, peed there for speed's sake, got dressed still half wet and was behind the wheel before he realized he was stone cold sober.

Made it easier to get away with speeding like a demon to make it to the airport.

He'd figure it out once he got there.

 

Bart Parcae stared at the row of books. The books stared back. It wasn't the first time his students had driven him to a staring contest with the overflowing shelves in the cubicle passing for his office, but for once, the harried teacher wasn't thinking about finding a way to explain Percy Bysshe Shelley to a pack of college kids who were much more familiar with his wife's work, albeit through the looking glass of Branagh's imagination. He wasn't even thinking about the unfortunately height-challenged kids who were trying so hard to make their coach proud of them by not losing by more than a twenty point spread when the next season started ... after all, they had all summer to grow, right? Not that they were going to get much taller, since their average age was twenty.

No, his thoughts were tumbling over themselves in a tumultuous whirlwind of unexplainable guilt, unbearable excitement, and unbelievable horniness. It wasn't his ex-wife; it wasn't the cute guy who'd moved into the apartment down the hall a couple weeks before; it wasn't the new Physics teacher who had the legs for the ultra miniskirts she insisted on wearing to the curriculum committee meetings, prompting fits of aphasia among the male half of the faculty (and several of the females, as well). No. This was something altogether different.

Rage. Joy. Despair. Delight. Acceptance. Betrayal. The heart-deep desire and soul-deep need for a single person. The other half of himself. Small but not slight, bright smile, brighter eyes, dimples and a thatch of golden hair, broader shoulders than his own, a bigger heart and a simpler soul, filling every empty hollow he'd ever had in his life.

He hadn't a clue who the man was. He simply knew he had to find him.

His laptop yielded a reservations site, his credit card provided the means, and twenty five minutes later he was on the road to the nearest municipal airport. It was a tiny plane, and Bart hated puddle jumpers, as his students called them, but he felt very much at home at the airport, for some reason he couldn't quite figure out. This, whatever this was, was right.

As he wobbled off the plane and down the ramp into the concourse, he didn't know why. But he knew he'd come home.

 

Luke felt like an overgrown juvenile delinquent, lurking around the American Freedom arrival areas, scanning faces coming off the little commuter planes like Moses looking for a burning bush. He'd've felt like a total moron, haring off to follow this weird tingle in his gut, except there was nobody around who knew him to ask questions (thank God) and he had the feeling he couldn't have ignored that tingle to save his life.

Then a lanky, slightly off-balance figure lurched through the gangway from one of the flights coming in from North Podunk. The tingle flared into a light that burned from his belly to his brain, and his feet were moving before he'd had conscious recognition of just whom he was seeing.

The guy. The tall guy with the pretty eyes and the pretty mouth and the strong hands and the heart that only got in trouble when it listened too much to the mind. And the soul that was the other half of his.

Luke caught up with the stranger who wasn't a stranger and yanked him out of the tiny crowd, over behind a conveniently placed pillar, into a far corner where nobody could see them. Then he grabbed that gorgeous face between his two hands, pulled it down to his level, and kissed him.

Gently.

Thoroughly.

Completely.

When it came down to crunch time and he had to breathe or pass out, he finally let the guy's face up ... a fraction ... from his own. He didn't let go. Didn't think he could. An eternity passed while they looked at one another. It was damned obvious to Luke that, expectations not withstanding, the guy wasn't going to punch him for pulling him over and diving down his throat. The bubble of happiness that was working its way from his erection to the top of his head and the ends of his toes burst out all over his face, and he just knew he was wearing the goofiest damned grin.

The guy grinned back. Just as damned goofy as his own. He knew. He could see himself in the man's eyes.

"Hi. I'm Luke," he offered. The man blinked.

"Bart," he answered.

"Home?" Luke asked.

Bart kissed him.

It wasn't gentle, but it was as thorough and complete as the one he'd given Bart. It made his knees weak, a bizarre thing for a veteran cop to admit, so he just admitted it to himself and hung on tight. They didn't stop kissing until a sound, repeated often enough to start sounding pretty pissed off, broke their concentration.

"C'mon, guys, get a room before I gotta get a hose."

A grumpy-sounding but slyly smiling woman in a uniform with epaulets on her shoulders was jerking her thumb over her shoulder.

"Home," Bart agreed. They both smiled at the woman. She looked stunned. They walked around her, keeping a good inch between them for appearances sake. No one bothered them, or even seemed to notice them.

It was a short drive, and Bart stared at him all the way there. "I'm a cop. Work out of MPD, homicide division."

"Meting out justice to the world, Angel of Death," Bart said very softly. Luke nearly drove off the road.

"I don't kill people, man. I catch other people when they do." Luke spared him a glance. Bart was smiling at him. It seemed to glow. Luke nearly pulled over and jumped his bones right there. Swallowing hard, he pressed down on the gas pedal and asked with a touch of desperation, "How 'bout you?"

"I teach English at a community college up north," Bart said, his voice a little distant. He sounded preoccupied. "Coach basketball. I like the kids. I like books. Words. The way they fit together."

"Speaker of truths, knower of souls." Luke just about bit his tongue. Where the hell had that come from? Then Bart's hand slid over his thigh, dangerously close to the bulge that was threatening the buttons on his jeans.

"The way they fit together," Bart whispered. His fingers tightened.

Luke whimpered.

Thanking God in an endless little silent prayer he pulled up to his apartment building and managed to park the car without driving over the curb or leaving it in the middle of the street. It was a near thing. Bart was kissing him again, his hand running over and around his lap, teasing him, getting him hotter and hotter. Luke was moaning with every breath now, and he broke away, pawing at the door handle frantically.

"Upstairs. Now." He led the way at a near run. Didn't know if they'd locked the car. Couldn't care less at the moment. They were barely inside the door when Bart backed him up against it.

"Follow me." The words were in Bart's voice, but deeper, somehow, compelling, familiar and beloved.

"Always," the voice, his own, but from some deep well inside him he'd never tapped into before, didn't know but recognized intimately.

Then Bart's hands had him naked from the waist down, and Bart's mouth was on his cock, and it was like he'd never done this before, never felt a hand placed on him in passion, never felt a mouth drive him insane, never been touched, never been aroused, never been ready to explode in a heartbeat.

Never been loved.

Never loved.

The feeling was immense, radiating from his heart to his mind to his body to Bart and back, one big endless loop of light and sound and emotion. He was coming before he had a chance to give warning, and Bart swallowed, once, twice, before leaning back on his heels. Catching the rest in his hand. Staring up at Luke's face like he'd never seen a man in the middle of a climax before, and had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

Then Luke was folding like a tire with a slow leak, and Bart caught him and kissed him. It was different, somehow, sweeter, like Luke had never tasted himself in another person's mouth, had never tasted like this for any other person. Then his shirt was gone, and he was tearing at Bart's clothes, needy and clumsy with his need. Bart got naked and Luke got close, and that goofy grin was back, because he was home, and he hadn't even known he'd been lost.

Bart kissed him, on the mouth, on the neck, on the forehead, then turned him, and Luke was rising up, pressing back against him as Bart was kissing him everywhere else, from his shoulder to his thigh and every place in between. Bart's mouth on his ass nearly killed him, and he was hard again, aching with wanting him. Bart was over him, then, arms around him, cradling him, as he moved in Luke, and Luke was past moaning now, couldn't do anything but say, over and over, "God. Yes. God. Yes. Oh, God. Yes."

The light was everywhere, in him, in Bart, pushed in with every thrust, shared back with every withdrawal. Bart was in him and over him and part of him and he was Bart and Bart was him and nothing had ever felt like this and nothing else ever could and why hadn't he ever known that making love was holy?

The second time he came, he collapsed, and Bart followed him down, a human blanket on his back, a living light in his heart. Luke wrapped his hands around Bart's, there on his chest over his heart, and for no reason that he understood, not to Bart but to Someone, he said, quietly, "Thank you."

FINIS

 


End file.
